At dawn on April 18, 1942, less than five months after the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, U.S. Navy Task Force 16 was steaming through
violent Pacific waters toward Japan. The flotilla consisted of two actual
task forces, task forces 16.2 and 16.1. Task force 16.2 was built
around the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier with the unlikely cargo of sixteen
Army Air Corps, North American B-25s, and their crews. The cruisers
Nashville, and Vincennes as well as the oiler Cimarron and the destroyers
Gwin, Meredith, Grayson, and Monssen complimented the Hornet. US
Navy Captain Marc Mitscher commanded the taskforce while Army Air Corps
Lieutenant Colonel James "Jimmy" H. Doolittle was in command of the sixteen
aircrews. Task force 16.1 was built around the carrier USS Enterprise
and served as an escort for the Hornet. It included the cruisers
Northampton and Salt Lake City, the oiler Sabine and the destroyers Balch,
Benham, Ellet and Fanning. Admiral William F. Halsey commanded.

The first B-25 was launched at 8:25 a.m., six hundred twenty-five
miles from Japan, with Col. Jimmy Doolittle at the controls. All
sixteen B-25s made it safely off the deck, although injuring one ships
crewman who had fallen into one of the planes propellers. They all
reached the Japanese islands, dropped their bombs on oil stores, factory
areas, and military installations, and then headed out across the East
China Sea. However, night was approaching, and the B-25s began running
low on fuel, not to mention the fact that the weather was rapidly deteriorating.
The crews realized they could not reach the Chinese airfields. They
were forced to bail out, ditch at sea, or crash-land, although one plane
was able to divert to Vladivostok, Russia.

Following the Doolittle Raid, many of the crews were forced into
hiding in Japanese occupied China. Only through the help of several
friendly Chinese were some of the crews able to escape to "Free China".
On Aug. 15, 1942. It was learned from the Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai
that eight American flyers were prisoners of the Japanese Police in that
city.

After the war, the facts were uncovered in a War Crimes Trial held
at Shanghai, which opened in Feb. 1946 to try four Japanese officers for
mistreatment of the eight POWs of the Tokyo Raid. Two of the original ten
men, Dieter and Fitzmaurice, had died when their B-25 ditched off the coast
of China. The other eight, Hallmark, Meder, Nielsen, Farrow, Hite, Barr,
Spatz, and DeShazer were captured. In addition to being tortured, they
contracted dysentery and beriberi as a result of the deplorable conditions
under which they were confined.

On Aug. 28, 1942, Hallmark, Farrow, and Spatz were given a "trial"
by Japanese officers, although they were never told the charges against
them. On Oct. 14, 1942, Hallmark, Farrow, and Spatz were advised they were
to be executed the next day. At 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 15, 1942 the three Americans
were brought by truck to Public Cemetery No. 1 outside Shanghai. In accordance
with proper ceremonial procedures of the Japanese military, they were then
shot.

On October 19, 1942, the Japanese broadcast that two of Doolittle's
crews had been put on trial for supposed war crimes, and had been sentenced
to death. Soon after they reported that a small number had been executed
and that the remainder had been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The resultant broadcast swept across America and a rush of new recruits
flooded draft offices.

My father, Alfred G. LoDico, age 28, was one of those who enlisted
when the age restrictions were dropped.